Through the course of BFA, we fought many followers of N’zoth. Notably, the K’thir, who were fluent in Shath’yar, the language of the Old Gods (which we’re not certain if ALL followers speak), who would drop the iconic phrase when they die: “I journey… to Ny’alotha…”
Now, in Shadowlands, there’s a fun easter egg you might have missed. If you stand in the River of Souls during the intro questline, your chat will get spammed with dialogue from freshly-deceased souls and their final words. Many are references to the events of Legion and BFA, such as references to Teldrassil burning or being killed by demons, but curiously, another thing is in that mix: full sentences in Shath’yar.
Obviously, these are N’zoth followers we had recently killed before Shadowlands started. Their rightful passage to N’zoth’s realm was scrambled by Sylvanas’s deal with the Jailer, and they got sent to the Maw alongside everybody else. Case closed, why bring this up?
Well, this raises several questions for me as a casual lore enjoyer:
Is Ny’alotha a realm in the Shadowlands, or at the very least does it hold some connection to them?
Are we seriously meant to believe Bwonsamdi cares enough about his people to withhold them from Mueh’zala and the Jailer, but N’zoth will willingly let his followers be fed to someone who may even be a rival force?
Did the breach into the veil of death have larger implications than just “Zovaal bad, he wants a sniff of the Azerite?” We know the Kyrians fought the Void at some point, could we have set Bastion on the path to another war?
Wtf are Sylvanas and Pelacgos supposed to do with these squid fellas
The thing to remember about WoW’s Cosmic Chart is that entities bound strongly enough to another Cosmic Power don’t go to the Shadowlands.
For most Faceless Ones, the ones born wholly from the Void, they probably return to the Void when slain. The Kyrian wouldn’t carry such souls to the Shadowlands. It’s against the rules.
For K’thir, they were mostly former humans who got turned into Faceless Ones.
And it could be that such a transformation wasn’t enough to bind them to the Void and prevent their passing on to the Shadowlands.
So, even though they assumed they were going to Ny’alotha, they didn’t.
It’s hard to say because the reality on how all of this seemingly discconected lore is realized is still heavily vauge. Ny’alotha might not even be an Afterlife at all.
The corrupted city nearly returned to Azeroth seeking to claim the Forge of Origination for itself and it’s master. -Exploring Kalimdor page 134.
Ny’alotha was an entity that exists outside of N’Zoth. In service to a master. The text is worded very interestingly because is also sets up cognative dissonance with how the characters remember it, each person who encountered it had a different idea about what it was. This lends itself to the idea that reality is what the dreamer makes of it, or that each individual can manifest his/her own reality. Ny’alotha was “A Nightmare made real.” But we the heroes drove it back into slumber. N’Zoth may have been re-originated, but Ny’alotha may still manifest again.
This presents a quantum theory that reality is an ever shifting illusion based on what ‘the dreamer’ dreams up. The Shadowlands is also built on this theory, Afterlives come to be because they are willed into existence based on the needs of the maker.
One lore truth from the Shadowlands was the existance of multiple Oribos.’ Korthia was just a graveyard of descarded remnains of destroyed previous versions of the Shadowlands. The Maw is therefore a cosmic dump for discarded matter.
In Bastion we learned briefly about an Ancient War where the Void attacked Bastion and this Void Entity was defeated and thrown into the Maw as well.
This is all the info we have, the rest is up to speculation, I have theories.
This is where the logic breaks down. Followers of the Old Gods don’t go to the Void, just as Orcs don’t go to the Nether after drinking demon blood. It takes a very high level of magic-infusion for a realm to be able to claim your soul.
Also, keep in mind your Lovecraftian tropes: Eldritch beings aren’t know for exactly respecting their followers, so they don’t tend to get jack squat as a reward in death.
Also, Ny’alotha is gone, eliminated with N’zoth’s erasure. It existed in some kind of weird concept-space, and behaved like a cognitohazardous meme attempting to bleed into baseline reality. That’s why Uldum was sort of “infected,” like reality was being altered in nonsensical ways. Ny’alotha was a malignant and infectious idea, a thought. Since it’s been hinted that the Void is a similarly fluid realm of potentials and ideas, it’s likely that it was just a bubble of the Void realm, but is now erased from the sphere of possible thoughts.
N’Zoth wasn’t just killed. The concept of him was erased from the space of things can be existent. He’s deader than Deathwing.
Not only is he gone, there has by definition never been a more gone entity in Warcraft. To think N’Zoth is coming back is so crazy I don’t even know how to respond.
It’s because when he’s killed, it’s after being stabbified with a dagger that has already been host to one mysterious void entity, and that dagger poofs away.
I’m not buying it personally, because post-stabbing, N’zoth seems pretty much there, and is still doing plenty of fighting, right up until he got disintegrated by the world’s most powerful Care Bear Stare.
But it’s conceivable the dagger has a little N’zoth stuck inside it, if the dagger survived.
Nya’lotha was a realm built by N’Zoth. All those Void incursions in BfA were N’Zoth summoning Nya’lotha and its forces from a future timeline where he’d successfully built it.
Yes. N’Zoth is not a caring or loyal individual. There’s even records of him fighting his fellow Old Gods. That said, good point about potentially strengthening a rival. It’s possible the followers of N’Zoth ending up in the Maw was not to plan.
Your description was funny, I like it. I think Sylvanas’ breach was centered around Azeroth. It was the breaking of the Arbiter using Argus’ soul that sent all the souls to the Maw. I don’t think this set Bastion on the path to another war as the Void was able to invade it the first time without our or Sylvanas’ help (which raises the questions of where Maldraxxus’ army was when that happened).
I don’t think Sylvanas cared about that. She just would’ve viewed them as “more souls to power up Grim Reaper sugar daddy”. As for what Pelagos is supposed to do, that is a good question.
never know, it could be a Dark Bakura situation where he put a fragment of his soul into the Puzzle at some point. That way Dark Bakura could exist inside the ring (thus being able to possess Ryu) and in the puzzle. In order to ensure his victory.
I am an old and do not see how Scott Bakula fits into this at all, he is not deceased, never got lethally Care Bear Stared and I cannot say he was never stabbed with a Cthulhu dagger but I very much hope it did not absorb a part of his essence if he was!!
But if he was stabbed and absorbed, I think it highly unlikely that Ryu from Street Fighter will wear a ring of him, because Ryu is a video game character and Scott Bakula is an actor.
No, and having been all over the Dragon Isles and seen nothing but pants-less dragon men, I can assure you that such a thing as Dragonballs do not even exist, so you have not watched them either!!
No I cannot, and I feel attacked by you saying I can!!
… Ok, yes, I do know what a Dragon Ball is and although I have never watched it, I know they do their super-special Hadoken-thing and it shares a name with the Hawaiian king(s).
But just because I am playing up my oldness doesn’t mean you have to attack me with Watch Mojo.
Too far, wolf-orc Gornur whose profile picture sometimes makes me think you’re a worgen.
Very well, but know that we’re here to support you.
I’m Gornur, a proud Shaman of the Horde. Fake Worgen Gornur is an illusion that you’ve seen. The illusion is not real, but I shall lava burst my enemies in the face.
